The Hill of Skulls – Chapter 8

*Scene 01* 15:19 (The Girl is Leaving)

Begglar and I rounded the end of the property, made our way behind the stands of trees, crossed the road and traveled back upward towards the barnyard and stables where we had met the previous night.  The troll signs had petered out and were lost, but we suspected they could not have gone too far in the night.

As we came up the path, Nell and two of the other woman came in upon us standing under the eaves of the barn.

“Where have you two been?!” exclaimed Nell, her hands on her hips, her hair in a slight, but charming disarray.

“Just like a man, gabbing away just as easy as you please while there’s work to be done.”

Begglar, having unburdened himself of his heavy secrets, felt in better humor, now that there were no illusions between us.

He grinned sheepishly at Nell, wiped his hands on his legs and followed her back out into the daylight.  I could still hear Nell enumerating all of what still had to be done that day, and what share of those responsibilities would be entirely performed by Begglar.  I believe I also overheard quite a few “Yes, dears” and “I was just getting to its…” before he and she descended just out of earshot.  Begglar might still have a few issues with courage.

Christie, whom I had dubbed “the she-bear”, was watching me with a half-grin on her face, but also with a sort of chastising look as if I owned my own share in the supposed plot to shirk the day’s duties.  Something was troubling her, and I felt I knew what it might be.  Christie had been paired with the girl I spoke to the prior evening occupying one of the bedrooms in Begglar’s Inn for the night.

The other woman who had arrived with Christie and Nell, who I later learned was Cheryl, had left to announce to the others that we were found and that they could call off the frantic search.  Or something to that effect.

“Something bothering you?” I asked Christie, as she continued to lightly scold me with her half-amused, half- troubled expression.

“Did you know the girl I fought the troll for is planning to leave us?”

I nodded and cleared my throat.  “Yes, I did,” I answered quietly. “She told me last night.”

“And you’re just letting her go?”

I shrugged.  “I can’t keep her from doing whatever she wants to do.  No one is forced to stay here or has to follow in this journey.  As I’ve said many times, this quest is not for everyone.  I know that.  Whatever decision she, you or any of the others make, it has to be done of your own free will.”

She eyed me, and I continued, “That doesn’t mean I don’t want.. I mean…  I want you all to come, but I am by no means forcing any of you to do so.”

She looked at me with a shocked and partially puzzled look, as if she was not prepared for this sort of answer.

“Y’know, you could have left us all on the beach then. Why didn’t you?”

“Because I was told to invite you. To give you all the opportunity to follow.”

“You told us there was something dangerous in the fog.”

“There was, is….”

“Tell me, what would have happened in the fog?” she folded her arms.

“Look, it is so very hard to explain everything just now. The fogs roving the coastline are more than what they appear. They are to be avoided at all cost and I had to keep you all safe.”

“Safe. From. What?” she responded, enunciating each word.

“You saw the troll, what it was capable of. That ought to tell you that the things you encounter here are much different than they are in the Surface World we came from.”

She studied me a moment quietly.

“There’s a lot your not telling us,” she walked past me looking away and then turned again. “You are struggling to keep some things from us.  It is like you want to tell us, but are afraid to,” she said, reading me too well.

She let the accusing quiet hang between us for a moment, but then granted me a temporary reprieve.  “But all that aside.  Do you think it is safe for her to be traveling back alone?  Back into…The Surface World?” saying the last three words with raised finger quotes.

I sighed a bit, not sure if she was mistaking my being resigned to the idea as being uncaring or insensitive to the young girl’s plight or circumstances back in the Surface World.  She arched her eyebrow at me, quizzically, testing me.

“Look, there ARE dangers here. You’re right.  Much as I might like to, I cannot shield people from living their own lives and coming to their own discoveries in and through it.  Perhaps it is because…”  I gathered my thoughts and words for a moment, but Christie, the ever brave She-Bear, finished my sentence, startling me with her conclusion.

“…because you were never a parent.  Never knew what it was like to see a young innocent girl so traumatized by life that you feel compelled to come in and make that pain stop in some way.”

That statement shocked me.  It hurt in some ways, but dug deep in others. She had me in a very awkward and uncomfortable place.  Like most anyone else, I wanted–needed some people to think well of me.  For some reason, I wanted her to think well of me more than the others.

“I…,” still gathering my words, I sigh again in frustration.  “We are making arrangements for her safe travel back.  I spoke to Begglar just now.  There are horses stabled near here, within walking distance to the southwest and down in a declivity.  Begglar offered to provide her and anyone accompanying her with food and tack for a day’s journey.  We are not that far out from the portal.  We came overland because I wasn’t sure of the old road. On horseback, Begglar assured me, that she could make it back to the coast in far less time so the provisions should be more than enough.”

Christie shook her head at me in amazement, “I don’t believe this.  What are you thinking?!”

Puzzled, I asked, “What’s not to understand?”

As if I were the most thick-skulled dunder-head in the world, she came over and knuckled my skull.  “Hello!  Anybody home?  Why are you so clueless, fearless Leader?!”

That stung.

“I am…I must be,” I stammered.  “Please fill me in.  What am I missing?”

She clenched her fists and looked to the sky for help.  “Ugh!  Men!  Why don’t they get it?!  So frustrating having to always spell it out for them!”

A soliloquy I surmised but didn’t interrupt or say so.  There is danger in interjecting while one is asking a rhetorical question.

“Her feelings, you blockhead!  What about how she feels?”

“How can I help her feelings, Christie?” I sighed.  “I just don’t know how anything I could say to her would make what she has struggled through any better for her.”

That brought quiet.  And reflection.  Christie’s expression was thoughtful but inscrutable.

A good thing?  I thought. I don’t know.  Waiting here.  Should I say something?  Or not?

At last, she broke the silence with a sigh.

“I just…” she began and then, “That young girl is vulnerable. Something has scared her. Something the troll may have done to her. I don’t know. But I feel like she is making the wrong decision running away from whatever it was that scared her enough to leave.”

I ventured, “Her situation is out of my depth.  I want to help her.  Feel strongly compelled to, but sometimes a person’s pain cannot be fixed by some other person.  Sometimes,” I backed off of the word choice, “…well, most times if we are being honest, many problems are bigger than us.  There is a lot of past hurt in her.  I cannot undo her past.  Problems with her dad.  I don’t know what all she told you. But her dad left and there was a lot of personal pain connected with that. The troll sort of exploited that.  They are malicious that way. There is an unexplained meanness in them that comes with their ability to see our inner fears. That is why I did not want anyone to lock eyes with it. Somehow they can see into a person’s soul and pick at our pain points.”

“Uh!” Christie exclaimed, “And you let me charge that thing down, without knowing that?!”

“I could hardly have stopped you,” I countered. “There’s not much I can do.  I cannot go back in time and make her dad stay.  Make him love her the way he should have.  Make him honor his wife.  Make him faithful to the vows he made in the beginning of their life together. Perhaps she does need to go back. There are things much worse than Trolls in this world.” I gripped one hand in the other, and continued, “Her dad, from what she told me, is ever bit as cruel as one of these trolls. He should’ve been there for her. He probably shaped her view of men.  If I could find that guy, I would like to kick the snot out of him…”  I paused, “…but would any of that help her?”

Christie rejoined in a soft voice, “No.  No, it would not.  It would just make it worse.  You meddling in her personal life.  Indicating that she was inadequate to deal with it constructively.  You would just be causing her to feel worse about herself than she already feels now. Anger doesn’t solve things.”

There was a lot of wisdom in that concession.  Words I needed to reflect on and apply to my own life and situations. Things done and said in anger almost always turn out wrong.  That is why I was reminded of some passages in the Ancient Text that I struggle with personally, and I fail so often putting into practice:

“A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but [he that is] slow to anger appeaseth strife.” [Proverbs 15:18 KJV]

“[He that is] slow to anger [is] better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” [Proverbs 16:32 KJV]

Anger leads to folly. But a cool head can reach clarity. I have hated myself for so long for what I did to those I had been a part of in the prior quest twenty-one years before. I knew what self-loathing could do to a person, and it made me feel so helpless to offer the girl anything more comforting than mere words.

Conviction sits on my front porch.  It practically camps there.  In fact, I don’t think it ever goes on a vacation, because its patient is so screwed up sometimes.

Christie broke in to my thought. “She doesn’t hate you, by the way.”

Startled, I asked, “What?”

“She said that you were the only male she’s known in her experience that ever just sat there and listened to her. It meant a lot to her, y’know.”

“Shall I try to talk to her again?”

Christie did not answer right away.  She was thinking and in a few moments, I could see that she’d reached a conclusion.

“No.  It’s not necessary.  You’ve done practically all you can do for her.  But there is something I can do.”

I perked up, “What is that?”

“I can go with her on her way back.  Be a friend to her.  She needs one right now.”

I cannot entirely admit that I had not hoped she would say that.  Make that offer of her own choosing.  Christie is clearly someone extra special.  Perceptive, thoughtful, and kind,…and quite capable of fully and completely kicking a Troll’s butt.  I knew I would be sorry to see her go, and I told her so.

“Thank you for doing this.  I could not ask you to do it, you know that.”

She elbowed me in the ribs as she passed by me on the way back to the Inn.

“Quit acting like it was your idea.”

I stood corrected and pleased to see something of her spunky spirit return.

“Besides, if you went, you would most certainly get her lost.  We all know how poor men are at asking for directions.”

I grinned, and said, “Hurry back as soon as you can.”

*Scene 02* 14:47 (Between Here and There)

My conversation with Christie about the girl who had decided to leave our company continued to weigh on my mind, long after we had returned into the small dining hall to help Begglar and his wife Nell clean up after the morning meal.

There was much to do.  The two cows had to be fed and milked.  Begglar had recently found his bull slaughtered and butchered by Xarmnian patrols in the open pasture, and had not had the means to buy or barter for a new one.

Nell organized others in the kitchen on the fine points of mixing and drying hardtack–a sort of flour, water, and salt mixture, flattened and pan dried into a hard biscuit that could be preserved and eaten over long journeys when other food was scarce.  These she apportioned out as a staple to be wrapped in corn husks and be added to our collective food stores.  Small hunks of hard cheeses were cut from a large cheese wheel stored in a cold cellar, and these were then dipped into warmed wax and tallow, then dried and set out for each of us, to add to our carried supplies.

The scrawniest gathering of barnyard chickens had to be fed the rationed handfuls of grains and cornmeal to supplement their natural diet of bugs and worms which were ever-present in scattered straw and dung in the stables.  Eggs were carefully collected from the nests, leaving only enough to allow for the faintest hope of their posterity to hatch and maintain the struggling line.  The rather lean pigs had to be slopped from the meager leavings of the morning’s meal.

The remaining stock, (horses, and a few spindly goats), were to be watered and fed, with a mix of hulled oats and barley grains from a barrel bin that was getting scratched and worried by the claws and teeth of rats hungrily trying to get inside.

Normally, the woven linens and bed coverings would have been hand-washed and hung out to dry, but Nell and Begglar seemed to have other things on their mind and whispered animatedly to each other as they gathered household items and seemed to be bundling and storing several of their kitchen items, personal belongings, and provisions for a journey.  They showed our travelers how to bundle and wrap their traveling items within their knapsacks, making the best usage of the space, arranging the items for dryness, food preservation, back comfort, and better weight distribution for carrying these packs on long trip overland through various weather conditions.

Begglar and his boy arranged some supplies and horses for Christie and the young woman’s return to the journey back to the portal near the sea cliffs to the south. Begglar told them, “Just to set the horses free at the cliffs to range and feed.”

“Leave the saddles and tack,” he tells them, describing a special cache location for which he gives them specific landmarks and directions to find.

We are assured that there is a friend of his that maintains some local stables near the seaports and the horses are trained to come to him before dusk to be fed further and be stabled for the night.

The young woman is worried as she strokes the mare she has been given to ride, “Are you certain they’ll be alright?  I don’t think I can just leave them that way?  What if they don’t go to the right place, or if they are caught?”

“Don’t you worry, lassie.  These are mountain horses.  They got a bit of spit and spirit in them yet, though they may not look it.  If they decide to return, they know where home is better than any person could. Have no worries about the horses. They’ve made the journey many times. They are rotation stock. I feed, water, and shelter those my friend sends and he returns the favor until each is returned”, says Begglar.

We say our goodbyes and wish them good health and safety on the journey.

“Still okay with this?” I ask Christie and she grins and exhales a huff.

“Oh yeah. I’ve ridden horses since I was a little girl back home. It’ll be its own small adventure and I’ll catch up to you all soon.” I nod and pat her knee as she mounts the grey gelding like a true cowgirl.

“Let the horse lead,” I say, “they have a nose for finding water and good instincts.”

“We’ll be fine,” she assures me.

“Just you don’t go getting mixed up with Trolls without me.”

“If it’s my choice to make, you can count on that. No fighting Trolls with my good friend Christie the She-Bear. It’s a deal.”

She grinned. Perhaps more to reassure me of her confidence in their safety than for anything else. After all, the Surface World contains far more unseen dangers than this Mid-World one could ever make visible.

I moved to the young woman, so fiercely determined in some ways, yet so fearfully vulnerable in others. She too had mounted her horse, a young, dun-colored mare.

I squeezed her hand reassuringly as it rested on the pommel of the saddle. She looked down at me with a brave effort and almost whispers an “I’m sorry” again before I stop her.

“I want you to remember something about this place when you go back to your life in the Surface World.”

“What is that?” she asked, unsure of where my words were leading.

“Here in the Mid-World, things are much clearer and more direct than they appear up in the Surface World.”

She interrupted, “Please don’t try to talk me out of this.  I just can’t stay here, knowing those Trolls are here and can hurt me like that.  I just…”

“I won’t try to talk you out of it, my dear.  It is not my place to make decisions for you.  As I said to the others, being here is a choice each of us has to make.  But I need you to understand something at the Mid-World that I don’t tell many others who are just starting to figure out what this place is in relation to where they’ve come from.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, “I’m listening.”

“What you may not realize, is that you presently are in both places at once.  You are in the Surface World, even now, but your consciousness is present here.  You do not lose anything of yourself by being here or there. You are what you are no matter how different you may pretend to be in each place.”

“I don’t understand,” she responded, her grip on the saddle horn tightening defensively, perhaps fearing that either I or she was going crazy.

“It is a hard thing to explain,” I said, “It has to do with conscious choices we make.  How we see our lives and how we view ourselves.  The Mid-World is a place inside each of us that blends the parts of us that we can see and the part of us that we cannot see into something else, for the purpose of experiencing a new way of living.  Not just by being born into the physical world, but by having a place within us where there is a working out of those parts of us that will either lead us to allow the Kingdom of Excavatia to be expressed or the remnants of our old life and its darkness and strongholds to rule and contain us.  You and I, and all of the others traveling with us have met in a nexus of this adjoined World between Worlds.  The portal we came through is just an expression of how we arrived here together.”

“Are you saying, this is an out of body experience?” she asked narrowing her eyes, looking down at me with suspicion.

“No.  Nothing like that.  As I said, you are in both places, but you are consciously here.”

“Am I asleep?  Having some sort of vivid nightmare I can’t get out of?”

“It is kind of like that.  A kind of dream, but with more reality to it.  It is both a vision and a dream.  It is not unprecedented in the Ancient Scriptures.  It happened to several of the prophets, and some of the apostles.  You have been given a rare glimpse inside of you.”

“I still don’t understand.  If this is me, what is the point in going back to the Beach where we first arrived?  Can’t I just wake up, or something?”

“That is not easily done.  Sometimes we have to make choices within the limits and rules of this place.  The vision doesn’t easily leave you.  Sometimes you must choose to go back through the portal that brought you here.  I don’t make those rules.  None of us do.  It is possible we move from here to there, without the memory of having been here.  But what makes going back through the portal important is that you will have a greater chance of remembering this place, when you go back through the doorway from which you came here.”

“And when I get there,” she spoke quietly, “How do I know the portal will still be there?”

I put my hand on hers, patting it encouragingly, “It’ll be there. As long as Surface Worlders are pursuing the call of the quests, the Sea Gate Oculus remains open. Yet it never leaves the water. It will come to you if you seek it. Just step into the water. You are not a prisoner of the calling to join this company. It is offered to you, but not obligatory. All of us were given the chance to be here for a good reason. When we are called by Him we are never lost or truly hidden from His sight. There is no place in life, whether here or in the Surface World that the One who loves us doesn’t know where we are at any given moment.”

“So you are saying, God brought me here?  Brought me so that I could meet that…that horrible Troll.”

I sighed, unable to help her understand.

“In a way,” I said slowly, “yes.  Yes, He did.  There is something in relation to your pain, that needs to be brought out to allow you to be healed.  To see what is going on inside you.”

“As I told you before,” she said, her lower lip trembling, “I am not ready to deal with that.”

“I know,” I said calmly, “I don’t want to push you.  As I said, you are free to make your own decisions.  That is the liberty and responsibility we are all given by the One.  But I do care that you are hurting, as He does.  He can heal that pain, but you must come to a place where you can choose to let Him.”

“The one important thing I do so very much hope you take back into the Surface World from your sojourn here is this. Trolls can only manipulate you with a lie that you believe to be true. When they hook into your mind like you experienced back there, Trolls can only pull forth the lies told to you. They have no power to use the truth against you. They cannot grasp it as a weapon against you. Please give that some consideration and time, and rethink what you were raised to believe about your value and intrinsic worth. You will be missed here. And if you should decide to come back, you will be welcomed and we will be glad to have you.”

She tried to hide the tears forming in her eyes.  And to prevent her from becoming embarrassed by them, I pretended not to notice. After a bit, she squeezed my hand too and cleared her throat.

“Thank you for that,” she said quietly. Then she paused, looked away to the south, up the path where we had come the day before.

Nell, Begglar and the others came out from their chores to wish the young women well, and tell her that they would miss her.  Begglar checked the saddles again, making sure they were secure and that the women were comfortable with their mounts.  He told them of each of their horse’s peculiar tendencies and what to do if.  He then rubbed and patted each animal affectionately, admonishing them sternly to “protect these lasses”, “hurry back” and “don’t be gettin’ inta mischiefs”, as if the horses were naughty children just waiting to get out from under their parent’s watchful eye.

When all had been packed and secured to her horse, the young woman looked at me one last time and smiled slightly and said, “Mister O’Brian.  You asked me a question the other night that I did not answer.  Well, I think I owe you an answer.  My name is Laura.”

And with that, she gathered her horse’s reins, goosed its flanks, and rode ahead to the top of the rise that then led down to the road winding towards the eastern sea.

Christie had been watching our quiet conversation while ostensibly “listening” to Begglar and Nell’s admonitions and directions for the journey. She grinned at me before taking the reins in one hand and made a clicking noise with her mouth to prompt her own horse to follow the mare and the young woman already a good twenty yards ahead.

‘Laura’, I said to myself, liking the simple and pure sound of her name. Come back soon to us, Laura. Your friends already miss you.

*Scene 03* 5:11 (Troll Sightings)

A lone farm dog barked somewhere in the distance, alerted to the noises coming through the lower woods near the road leading down into the hamlet of Crowe.

With the bundled burnt corpse tied between them, the two trolls, Grum-blud and Shelberd, galloped through the forest detritus like a pair of tragically conjoined orangutans.  They cursed at one another as they alternated their irregular gait between knuckled gallops and swinging stomps, hooking tree limbs and bustling through brush as fast as their panicked limbs could carry them. The blackened corpse of their unfortunate crispy comrade did not fare well as it flopped and swung from side to side.

At last the pair tumbled out of the undergrowth upon a deer path trail and fell to the ground, breathing heavily.

“Gaww, you idiot,” gasped Grum-Blud, “The Walker is not pursuing us. Me thinks he is set upon another path.”

“Why is he here?” whined Shelberd. “Of all times for him to return! Do you think he knows why we were interested in the Inn Keeper?”

“Haven’t a clue. But he seems to know what we are, at any rate,” Grum-Blud grumbled.

“What’re we doing with Pawgly, Grum? Why can’t we just let ‘im rot in peace?”

“Dead or not, he’s my brother, and I’ve a mind that he dark-eyed who brung him down. Soon as we get to a secluded hole, we’ll build a fire and peel his sunken gazers.”

“You can do that?!” Shelberd trembled, quaking at the thought of such a grizzly ritual.

“Just you wait and see, ” growled Grum. “Whoever did this will only wish they had left him be. The mind twist was only the beginning of what they will suffer, once I get a blade to ’em.”

“How much of the dark waters did you drink, when you became?” Shelberd wondered.

“Enough to know the lingering sight through dead eyes are still mirrored windows to the soul upon which they are last fixed.”

As he said this, Grum-Blud caught sight of two figures on horseback, sky-lined against the eastern horizon.

“Wuz dis?” he muttered.

Shelberd turned, following his gaze, squinting and then seeing the distant figures as they slowly trotted over the crest of the hill.

“Somepin’s up,” Grum-Blud growled groping in his slung pouch.  He slung the body of his brother off his shoulder laying it in the dust of the road, and retrieved a wooden loop with a large lens from out of a woolen sock.

Raising the lens to his eye he got a better look at the riders in the distance.

“Well, now…,” he mumbled, “what have we here?”

“Let me see,” Shelberd reached for the spyglass, and received a slap on his reaching hand for his trouble.

“Girlies goin’ ta sea. And the rumors of an Oculus sighting. Chance? I think not!”

“What we gonna do? They got horses?”

Grum-blud’s brow furrowed, “Travelin’ by the sea road. But there’s a quicker way through the valley near the old ruins of Bacia.  Jahazah’ll go easier on us if we have some intelligences of these goings on. So we’re gonna get ourselves some bleeding intelligences from these pretties.”

“Um, what?” Shelberd had been looking up at the darkening sky, while Grum-Blud had sole custody of the spyglass.

He did a double-take when he saw Grum-Blud had lowered the spyglass and was now scowling at him.

“What’d I do?!” clearly clueless.

“Idiot!” Grum-Blud growled and pocketed the glass. “Pick up Pawgly and let’s get movin’!”

“Where we goin’?”

“We’re taking the valley cut and going to Bacia.”

“Bacia? Who wants to go there? Just ruins there.  Huts and hovels, Nobody lives there anymore,” Shelberd complained. “Weren’t we suppose to wait to meet Helmer and the others in Crowe?”

“Change of plans.  With Pawgley dead, we got nothin’ for Jahazah, and I ain’t going back to Jahazah until we got somethin’,” Grum-blud growled. “Now grab your end of Pawgley and quit your mewlin’. Girls are getting too far ahead. Move it!”

*Scene 04* 4:50 (Partings)

“Where to now?” I am asked taking me back out of my quiet thoughts.

“We must first go down to see the Marker before we can go up,” I told the group as we packed up our own gear and climbed aboard the buckboard wagon with Begglar and his family.

Begglar has informed me, in no uncertain terms that he and his family are going with us on this quest of ours.  That the Inn has not turned a profit since the Xarmnian conquests began, and that it is not likely ever to again unless they are dealt with.  Once the Xarmnians find out that he had helped a fleeing family, then he and his family’s lives will be forfeit anyway.  Nothing holds them here if all is to be lost anyway.  Besides, for the prolonged journey, we are undertaking, we are going to need someone smart enough to be able to live off the land.  “Someone,” he paused, giving me a sidelong look, “…who can actually cook.  No offense given,” he says.

“And none taken”, I responded.

In our past travels together, Begglar had more than once, remarked upon my poor cooking skills.  I never claimed to be much into the culinary arts.  Under our prior sojourn, under the leadership of Jeremiah, we were each given a rotation of shared duties in our travels, cooking was one area of some contention with road-weary and hungry travelers.  When we encountered those among us with particular skills in certain areas, eventually those previously shared duties were apportioned more to where our natural abilities lie.  Something learned in shared travel experiences.

There was something in that.  A midpoint compromise that struck me as something unique about the calling of a body united by shared faith and mission when placed juxtapose to the opposing political philosophies of the two major powers here.

The Ancient Text says:

“If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.” [1 Corinthians 12:26-27 NLT]

Each of us is a unique part of one another.  Together we are the fellowship of one body with many different unique gifts and talents.  The collective good and the individual good are both given importance and value when thought of as being within a body of fellowship and faith.  In the exclusive extremes of both the Xarmnian and even the Capitalian political ideals lies the error that leads to division.

As I watched both Christie and Laura ride away, I felt a deep sense of loss.  Like our company was losing the function of two important and unique limbs of our collective company.  Persons who, unbeknownst to them, were each a vital part necessary to our survival.  I had hoped that, as before, the fact that they had willingly given me their names before departing, that they would return to us again before this quest progressed too far.  They were needed more than they know, but in my heart, I knew it was not my decision or right to hold them here against their own will.  The One does not employ tyranny in His Calling.  I had to keep reminding myself of that, as hard as that might be for me.  I had painfully seen, too well what the folly of seeking my own way to accomplishing the quest was.  How much pain and danger and loss would come out of it.

I whispered a quiet prayer for the safety of two women as they and their mounts disappear from view over the eastern slope into the valley of the shadow beyond it.  I did not know how they would get back to us, but I had to leave that responsibility and outworking in hands bigger than mine.

Leadership, I was learning, is not so much in figuring out everything for everyone else and giving them direction, but in being humble enough to listen, learn, and follow.  To admit that I do not have all the answers and to learn from the gifts and talents of those given into my charge.  Each of them is here for a reason.

I ponder that, as I see the bright hopeful faces gathered about, preparing for the days ahead.

*Scene 05* 8:29 (Tainted Waters)

The large powerful man, widely known to the occupants of The Mid-World as “The Walker”, surveyed the gurgling water of the small stream running along the bottom of the Basian valley. Its silvery water course cut through the wide-swath fields of fertile grassland, drown out by the librarian hush of the booking valley winds.  The land used to be harvested by the local farmers, but now was left only to grow wild, for the Xarmnians had violently seized control of the land tracts by raising and burning the area towns, killing many of the townsfolk who used to work the local fields and farms as day laborers.  The headwaters of the mighty Trathorn river were fed by many of these smaller tributary streams running freshwater in from the valley snow melts and underground aquifers.

He had traveled from the seaport town of Skorlith, where the symptoms first started showing up. Something was happening to the townsfolk. A certain malaise arose blanketing in their normally impassioned character. Skorlithians were always known to be a boisterous, rowdy lot, in general. They loved their work, hauling in loads of fish from the fjord lakes and rivers. Cold water catches that had improved in the years following the slaying of the vile leviathan.

The Trathorn was just one of many rivers that fed into the great fjords of Lake Cascale, but it was from there that The Walker learned the cumulative effects were coming.

Only the villagers who drew their water from The Trathorn had the signs of the strange tainting. It tended to show up subtly at first: a dulling of the spirit, a weakening of natural resolve, indecision, aversion to risk, and a deep inner fear that beckoned the onset of a paralysis of passion.

The Skorlithians were the one group of the Mid-Landers that could always be counted on to resist the incursions of the Xarmnians into first-land towns. They had no lack to be exploited by the appeal of Xarmni traders.  Their present self-described “King” could gain no amount of leverage against a people who thrived on self-sufficiency and the bounty gained from their own sweat, blood, and ingenuity. A people who had no basic needs for the wares and production of Xarm were perceived as a threat by their king, and to be regarded with heightened suspicion. The Skorlithians were seafarers, boat people, more content on the water than ever on land.  They drew their living from the fresh waters of the massive chain of lakes between the lower end of the highland valley and the great stone forests of mountains to the western horizon. Shellfish, cold water crab, eels, seals, and a variety of edible fish comprised their main diets coupled with locally grown vegetables harvested from home gardens that flourished in the rich lakeside soils.

Neighboring Mid-Land communities further in towards the rising highlands supplied grassland grains for their breads and malts and cultured hives supplied them with miel and herds of goats, kept swine, sheep and cattle their occasional luxuriant fare of meats.

These trading relationships were solid and allowed no opportunities for the Xarmnians to disrupt the trade, for the Skorlithians were a proud and strong people and would savagely defend the inner towns against intrusions.

The mutually supplied towns of the great valley along the waterfronts were the places where the Xarmnians met their strongest resistance, so the Xarmnian king had withdrawn his forces and sought their supplies through conquering and terrorizing the smaller more remote communities further east where the Skorlithians could not prevent their brutal reign, and from these conquests they had gained their strength over time and eventually amass a sizable army of foot and horse soldiers to eventually move in against the lower coveted valley towns.  The king had a careful long-range plan to conquer the inner kingdoms in deceit, through dependency or failing those by swift and brutal might without raising the alarm of their distant kindred the Capitalians who dwelt beyond the fjord lakes among the stone mountains behind their massive wall.  If ever the Capitalians moved beyond their insulting barrier wall, the “Son of Xarm” wanted them to discover that all lands toward the east of their insulting boundary had now bowed and fallen in allegiance to their sworn enemy, the mighty Kingdom of Xarm.

The Walker knew their history and the contention and animosity that lie between these “Brother Kingdoms” and he knew their fraternal conflict would literally rip this Mid-World apart if it ever succeed into an outward war.

His family and those descendants of The Fire Prophet would be caught in the mix of this coming conflict, and the world beyond this Middle world would suffer the most as a result.

In the meantime, someone or something was poisoning the fresh waters of The Trathorn, and it was affected all of those who drew and drank from its waters.  Thousands would be affected by the tainting of those waters for The Trathorn was one of the purest rivers coming from the eastern highlands and the eastern sea.  The effects, he sensed were not a natural poison that most certainly would have been purged in the flow over its downward journey, but of an origin of something else more…supernatural.

Seeing the two Trolls on the outskirts of the small highland town of Crowe confirmed it.  Someone was collecting transformative waters and turning these unfortunates into these unnatural creatures. He had heard the rumors from the Xarmnian lands.  That these trolls were more amenable to the wildness of other dark creatures who also bore a curse in their flesh. The Xarmnians were planning something but may have also unwittingly and foolishly let loose other agents of darkness into the Mid-World against which they had no defense.

He had collected small strains of the black water, along his trek up the winding course of The Trathorn seeking the source of it.  The strands of the black water swirled angrily in the wax sealed glass vial he had collect them in.  He sensed a spiritual malevolence in the twisting threads of black that swirled continually and bumped aggressively against the confines of the glass tube.  In this world, the twisting filaments had a metaphysical form these strains were not used to. In this existence, they could be constrained and captured under something a simple as glass. In another world, however, their only constraint was by divine injunction against affecting and tormenting those persons against which they were not given permission.

*Scene 06* 3:45 (Watchers in the Woods)

Large, yellow-rimmed eyes watched, almost unblinkingly from the cover of the trees surrounding the property belonging to Begglar.  A light breeze brushed through the mane of the tall, dense foliage, but failed to comb out the tangled and twisted, heart beating beneath a feathered half-human breast.  It’s face was a dappled greyish-pink, fixed into a scowl, scored with the lapping shorelines of ages of waiting.  Her large black talons dug vise-like into the lacerated branch that held her weight.  Her shanks were covered in hammered metal collars that bore a wickedly sharp barb, arched downward, so that it would not cut her when she nested.  The metal bands, however, bore a red-dust, that made her powerful, thick claws appear bloodied, though they were presently dried.  The creature was quite pleased with the effect.

A susurration of wind stirred and sway the treetops covering her low warbling chirrups, as she both hummed and cackled at the oblivious gathering of the people below.  She craned her ruffled neck, spotting her sister perched three trees away to the south.

“They’ve come together, at last,” she observed. “From shore to sea.  The keeper of the Inn, appears to be with them. Where to? Where to? Next things.  Always next things.”

The shadowy feathered sister’s head bobbed in agreement, answering.  “Girls going east, they are. But the company lingers.  Wagon’s being loaded. Me thinks, they proceed to The Sacred Hill.  Shall we fly to the stone-halled king?”

“Wait and see,” the first one bid her, “Wait and see.”

Her aquiline nose sniffed the breeze blowing to the clap of thousands of tiny leafed-cymbals.  She could smell the salty brine of the sea upon its drafts, coming from the eastern horizon, and sense the degree of chill beginning to bite, and the air pressure drop in a slow but steady decline.  A storm was coming.  The girls were riding away into a sea borne storm. And the others, unwittingly into a storm of steel and blades.  The Xarmnians were coming for them.  An hour, maybe more and they would ride abreast through the hamlet of Crowe, and seize this party of interlopers and end what ever hope and intentions that had brought them here.  She couldn’t help but chuckle a little.  Such gullible simpletons, these full-men had become.  She was amazed that she had ever entertained the deep desires to become like them once again.

*Scene 07* 10:44 (Leaving the Inn)

The barnyard was clear.  The animals tended.  The stables filled with fresh straw, and ample feed poured into a gravity feeder to allow the stock to feed until other caretakers could come and spirit them away in the evening.

Begglar had told me the plan was to keep the Inn and its functions appearing as if nothing was out of the ordinary, when the Xarmnians finally did come.  The skeleton staff were to report that the proprietor and his wife had gone to the neighboring village of Cradlesbower to purchase supplies and food stuffs in preparation for the upcoming winter season.  They were to report that they should return any day now.  That the Xarmnians were free to wait and enjoy to hospitality of the Inn until they returned.  The hope was that the semblance of routine and normalcy might stall the Xarmnian pursuit for a few days, allowing us to get further along in our journey.

I help Begglar hitch the team of horses to the wagon: A rudimentary buckboard rig that appears to have seen better days.  Its wood is ash gray, weathered.  Polished smooth by the countless burdens it had no doubt transported in the commandeered service to Xarmnian supply. But it appears sturdy and tested.  Interior boxes along the side rails of the wagon bed served as storage compartments and a long bench seat box for riders too weary to walk or ride horses.  The doubled-slat floor, reinforced the wagon bed, allowing it to carry a large load of fine milled grain or shucked kernels of corn without losing the cargo through the sifting cracks between the hand lathed boards as it jostled over mountain roads.  Begglar said the Xarmnians often followed a loaded wagon, looking along the road for wastes and spills, and would deal severely with the wagon owner if they found trace evidence that he had not maintained the integrity of his wagon enough to their liking.  Any excuse to beat someone as an example to other haulers and drivers would serve.  As such, the end gate of Begglar’s wagon was double-reinforced with a carved trim that fit into a notch to prevent run-off through the edge of the gate hinges, when the wagon had to be pulled up a grade.  Flexible bows were also stored in the seat boxes, to allow the bed to be covered with a canopy, as well as length of rope to secure the oiled canvas over the bows with ties and sewn tie backs.  The wagon was a medieval-style marvel, born of necessity, reticent of the covered wagon trains utilized in the pioneer days of the early American west.  Begglar took great pride in its construction and showed me its many features in much the same way as a hobbyist auto-mechanic might while showing off his refurbished, embellished and restored classic car.

All tolled, Begglar had once had a harras of eighteen horses.  Six for the coaches, six for working stock, and six he loaned out to the local townsfolk, as they shared a rotation of their animals.  The two he had sent with Christie and Laura, named Zohar and Ardolpha, were ones he and Nell would typically ride over country, while they let Dominic drive the wagon.  Any one observing their usual patterns of their periodic re-stocking trips would expect to find those horses missing, if they came calling during the off-season of the Inn.  Their stock horse, Sable, he’d sent with the fugitive family, which his friend Shimri would return to his stable later.

“Amineh, this one,” he said rubbing the nose and neck of the mare he had hitched, “means ‘faithful’.” He secured the girth straps into the cinch ring, snugging it up with two swift tugs, and then rerouting the end through the padded loop, that fed the tracer reins.  He indicated the other mare that I was getting secured to the harness, “That one is Constantine.”

I raised an eyebrow, “You name your horse after the Christian emperor of Byzantium?”

“You might think so, but his name means ‘steady’. And if you ever worked under a Xarmnian taskmaster, these are the two horses you most want pulling your wagon,” he eyed me sidewise, making sure the wooden beam and tongue of the wagon hung evenly between the two horses, closest to the driver’s bench.

“But what we need is strength and speed, for what is ahead. So the lead horses provide that, in as much as they can.  Their names are Ryker and Antioch–strength and speed.  Since we will need both, they are the lead horses, and they are a competitive lot by nature.  So, when they get going, they get going. Understand?”

“You’re saying anyone riding in the wagon should hang on tight?”

“Like to a kite’s string in a gale.”

Begglar and I finished cinching and securing the straps, harnesses and tracers to the lead horses, as Nell organized the others in the dining hall. Dominic helped a few members of our party get into their traveling packs and taught them how to wear them to reduce chaffing and road fatigue.

Several milled about outside the Inn, packs secured and observed us finishing up with the wagon and the team.

We loaded the wagon and the seat boxes with the supplies Nell and Dominic said we would need for the road, along with other food stuffs and sacks of meal and grains that we were to provide to some of the needy in the local townships we would pass through.  Food stuffs, Begglar explained, were more valued than coinage in the open country, for they had immediate value to struggling communities, that gold and silver alone could not meet without brokerage.  Bartering and dickering had become the principle method of commerce in the outerlands, for Xarmni could not exact its onerous taxes and duties from it, and very little records were kept to reveal the honor system transactions.  No one expected to ever receive justice from one of the Xarmnian magistrates, so they avoided those kangaroo courts altogether.  Agreements were reached upon a handshake with two or three witness present from both parties to seal the bargain.  To signify the pacts made, each of the vendors and sellers put their hands upon the hilt of an honor sword belonging to the community, and the witnesses were also honorbound to ensure the secret bargain was kept, without involving Xarmni.

Once loaded we piled in to the wagon.  Some opted to walk along side it, as Begglar stated that we would going slow enough to ease the horses into the long journey, rather than demand their strength and speed too early.

The company seems generally happy to be moving again, though some looked wistfully back at the Inn and the wagon yard and stables growing smaller in the distance as we progress up the rising dirt road angling up to the top of the hill.

Perhaps they are remembering the comforts of a warm bed and fire, and a hot breakfast that will most likely be more sumtuous than anything we are bound to get out on the open road.  Or perhaps, the idea of finally going to The Marker Stone, as I have been alluding to, is somewhat disconcerting.  A few may have overheard a reference to a place called “The Hill of Skulls,” which, understandably, would give any sane person a sense of pause.  But I have kept certain truths to myself, thus far.  It is enough to know what I already know, and the changes made to the site, as told to me by Begglar, do give me a sense of uneasiness as well.  But still.  I know that this is where our journey must begin.  I also know that before The Stone is the best place to make any further confessions that need to be made.  So, I am admittedly nervous about that too.  This could be the place where many will turn away.  Where some may decide to take their cues from Laura’s decision to return back to the Surface World while there is still time.

As I look back to the east, I see a darkness gathering in the sky towards to sea.  I know that the fogs come there from time to time, but perhaps what I’ve done with asking and receiving the names of both of these young women will be enough since neither will be here to see The Marker Stone for themselves.  Sometimes commitments must come entirely by a faith in the unseen.

The journey to the Hill of Skulls is not far.  It is just over the rise, but with a wagon and plodding, horses fatigued by life, we have to wind our way up the side of the grade before cresting the rise.

Seeing the toil of the horses, made me doubt Begglar words of deliberate optimism with regard to his team of horses. I wondered if the names he had been telling me and their meanings were more aligned to his wishful thinking, or attributable to his characteristic Irish blarney, for which he was also so endeared among my former quest mates.

Below us, lay the fields of combat, that Begglar speaks of.  On the hillside just below is a series of mounds in succession, aligned as if they were the backs of great elephants walking down the valley floor to the foothills of the mountain ranges beyond.

Mountain roads formed by the passage of horses and many wagons bruise and scar the hillside with their rutted tracks of passage.  A very large mound is centered between two other mounds.  Its rounded hill is covered by speckled by birds, and large thorn briar bushes and brambles.  The effect of the sight before us is powerful and stirring.  All talk, between us, stills.  There is a reverent hush that we observe as we wind our way downwards.  Down towards its base where tragedy and promise meet.